Takigi Noh, Kaoru and Compassions for Tragic Love
Note: The kanji for Kaoru means fragrance, so the title may also be read as "Takigi Noh smells of Tragic Love". The scene opens where Kaoruko is talking to her sister, Sakon's mother, about an arranged marriage for her and how she doesn't want to take part in it. After hearing Sakon talk about how he is good looking and is very much talked about by the media, she looks at his file and photo and instantly changes her mind about the marriage. She asks her sister about when they can meet the guy she was marrying and goes on her way to him using her car. She brought Sakon because her sister have asked her to but while on their way to the location, she sees a masked person and stops the car. The masked person flew straight to the car they were on and suddenly disappeared. Could it be a real spirit warning them? After arriving at the place, Kaoruko found out that there was actually no arranged marriage by talking to the head of the family. The head of the family discussed that even though they are old friends with her father, he did not arrange a marriage between her and his apprentice. The apprentice comes in the room and asks to continue the introduction of them anyways. While in the middle of the Noh performance, the head of the Kujou family is shot with a crossbow arrow in the head and the performance is stopped. Sakon and Ukon later found that the crossbow wasn't directly used and the killer used a piano wire and a timer to get the crossbow to shoot in a specific time. It was also found that the floor where the performance was being done on was excessively slippery (someone had waxed it out) so the performance was slightly off. Later, Kaoruko's fiancee (Naoto) gets a threat letter through the window attached to a crossbow arrow. Kaoruko went to investigate only to see Aki (the niece of the family's head) stabbed through the stomach and the supposedly masked (Hannya) killer run off while slashing the arm of Kaoruko's fiancee. Kaoruko asked the family's butler (Tsubota) to call the local police so they can do a man-hunt and search for the suspect. The local police then found the heir to the family (Kouei Kujou) dead, while smelling like alcohol, inside a car after crashing down a road. Eimei (the youngest child of the Kujou family) and Naoto are left alive. After the funeral, Sakon and Ukon went back to the mansion to investigate what really happened and to explain the mystery of the masked killer. It is then that Sakon saw the caretaker, Tsubota, going inside the mansion. Ukon asked what he's doing and he answered that he was just trying to clean up, but Ukon notes that it looks like he's just messing up the room. Sakon states that Tsubota probably knows who the killer is and then Tsubota showed the picture of Eimei and Aki together in a picture; he also told the story of how Eimei was forced to learn the Kujou family's traditional arts and was separated from his mother which made Eimei's mother commit suicide due to not being able to meet her only son. This makes Eimei have motive and become a suspect-- But he is then found at the bottom of the cliff dead! Naoto tells Kaoruko that he cannot leave the Kujou school after having a lot of deaths and be happy while the school suffers so he insisted that as one last goodbye, he'll perform in front of Kaoruko. Before the performance was about to start, the mask starts crying blood once again, and Sakon and Ukon solves the mystery like always. It's found that Naoto and the butler/caretaker, Tsubota, was working together. Tsubota's motive being that he was mistreated by both the master, young master Kouei, and not even Eimei so he went along with Naoto's plan to kill them so that Naoto can succeed the school while he takes care of the business side of things. Naoto states that he was only using Kaoruko since she was a detective as an alibi. At the end, it is hinted that he made himself look worst just so Kaoruko won't get too broken hearted over the fact that the person she likes is a murderer. "It's better for the villain to stay a villain, isn't it?" -Naoto